vr is something i have a really complicated relationship with. a lot of people know me as someone who is really passionate for the medium. it means a lot to me, and i've spent many, many hours in vr just hanging out and socializing in vrchat or tiring out my own arms in beat saber. you'd be forgiven for not knowing this about me, because it's the kind of thing i did not frequently chatter about for a long time. i kind of resent it a little; so much of who i am now can be traced back to me being a vrchat mirror dweller in what was at the time an incredibly niche platform that didn't have the market saturation it does today... shouldn't i care more that vr is withering on the vine?

i can't really remember when i got my oculus rift. it was right when the headset became properly affordable (2017?), after the touch controllers came out but well before the quest or even rift s. it was so early on that my order came in two boxes -- one with the rift, and one for the touch controllers which were just a few months prior sold seperately. the rift box even came with an xbox controller, a vestige of when the rift was just a headset and nothing else, conceived before valve and htc really managed to put the pieces together of what we now know as "room scale" vr.

i was excited. it was a new way to experience games, probably the most interesting thing that the industry put out since 3d graphics became a mainstay with the ps1. i fantasized about modding in support to garry's mod, my platform of choice for prototyping game ideas. back then unity wasn't quite as established, unreal seemed far out of scope and roblox was a bit too kiddy. garry's mod was the perfect balance, and i was going to be the one to put the pieces together and start a golden era of garry's mod vr ugc, where you could code and do anything. people would be doing darkrp bank heists in vr with all of their friends in tow, elevating what was previously an exciting but decidedly less visceral experience into an immersive heartpounding chase that felt like you were really there.

...the felt feeling when i got the thing was, less optimistic and a little more grounded, lol. in the end, i hit a lot of roadblocks. the biggest was vr apis just... didn't support directx 9. back when i first saw the dk2, it was a bit "dumb", a literal monitor bolted to your face with some software tricks to convince games to render to the correct output with some rotational input control. steamvr though, that had it's own compositor, with surface sharing to automatically apply lens distortion and all the stuff that makes vr feel "right". the problem? dx9 didn't support shared textures*, so the steamvr compostor was unable to actually grab the rendered views and flip them to the displays. eventually i did manage to cobble something together, but it was a mishmash of code i found in other repos, never anything more than a barely functional prototype. not wanting my efforts to go to waste, i was able to reach out to catse, the author of a far more mainstream gmod vr project and contribute some of my code and notes to their effort, which got me a little special thanks credit in the description of the workshop upload.

(*yes dx9ex supported it, but steamvr didn't. a stray forum post from a valve dev claimed eventual support was coming... as of 2026, it still doesn't)

there were other problems. you don't realize it just walking around, but the feeling of acceleration is vital for your immersion in the actual reality. not having that made things feel decidedly less, real. to this day it's an issue you run up against. visual experience can often be breathtaking... but you're not going to convince anyone that vr is worth it by shoving them into a virtual roller coaster. limited motion is another pretty unfortunate limitation, especially back then. wireless mainsteam vr is something that is still relatively new in the space, and even if you could cut the cord in 2016 / 2017, the player will inevitably run into a wall if they try to walk around like they would in real life. these things don't always kill the experience (beat saber for example does an excellent job staying within these limitations), but it does make the high stakes action in most fps games (aren't all vr shooting games first person..?) feel a lot less impressive than what you might be imagining in your head, especially if said game utilizes any form of vehicular travel.

so, what else is there? beat saber as stated previously is a favorite, pavlov became an early staple by basically being vr counter-strike (also notable for totally pissing away their good will practically overnight by nuking their modding support in favor of getting quest players onboard...), there's a whole slew of little games whose genre is best described as "paid vr tech demo" (job simulator, the stupid rick and morty one, etc) and... vrchat, a game that is exactly as described by it's name.

excited to play with my headset, and interested in the idea of what a vr-native garry's mod may look like, vrchat became one of my most played games in vr. at the time, vrchat had custom avatars and worlds, but the udon scripting layer had yet to even get an official name, so worlds were at best museums to wander around in with the occasional one that cleverly utilized triggers and buttons to create small puzzle worlds. it didn't take me long to figure out how to shove an mmd model of remilia scarlet in there, and i began wandering pub worlds as a mute touhou girl.

back then, vrchat didn't really have the weird cliquey culture it does now. people were warmer, a lot more civil and eager to reach outside of their group to chat with strangers. it was a cool time to be around. i was a little too scared to talk, but i knew something about the entire thing clicked for me. i liked being around people. talking was out of the question, but i motioned with my hands and mimed my actions out, and i made a few friends even. i hung out with people, formed friendships that persist to this day, kitbashed my own avatar with various parts sourced from booth, learned so, so much about blender and unity and the entire stack of tools required to make this work... eventually, i wound up blowing something to the tune of $1300 CAD to import a valve index from the USA before they officially began shipping to canada, even buying vive trackers to complete a full body setup.

it felt right to be there. it felt right to look how i wanted, to identify how i wanted, for all of my motions to reflect perfectly in the mirrors that i adored so much to be in front of. i couldn't use my voice because, well, that'd betray my appearance, i'd reveal to everyone else that i wasn't actually this cute, that all of it was a facade and all of my newfound appreciation of self would crumble instantly if i ever gave up that one piece of information.

dear reader, have i ever mentioned that i am transgender?

this entire experience obviously broke a dam inside me. i had knew i was trans for a while, but so viscerally experiencing a feminine identity made it undeniable. i knew something had to shift so that maybe one day i could talk to others, with my own voice, not feeling some implicit longing that all of this was just a pretend life i lived when it was convenient.

there were nights when i would hang out with my (offline) friends in vrchat, particularly around 2020 where after a few drinks i had the confidence in me to hit my unmute button and just say words to other people, but it didn't come easily. around my online friends, i remained strictly a mute for at least a year... only ever communicating through text where possible, or by miming my motions out. it was undeniably cute, but it's not really the foundation to a lasting friendship if all you can do is play charades with someone.

eventually, i managed to get over it. in a private instance, i managed to say my first words. it felt a little embarassing and revealing... i had by this point came out as trans to them so there was no more secrets to hold close to my chest. my voice isn't really something i like, even today... but back then, it felt like it might make or break my relationship with these people. being around an inclusive group, naturally, everyone was overjoyed to hear their friend may start talking suddenly. i was accepted, for the first time.

not all good things can last forever, and unfortunately due to a series of catastrophic failings of empathy and an inability for the internet to let things go, my group was fractured by petty online drama. if you know me, you probably know enough to put together what i'm talking about, but in the interest of not kicking a bee's nest, suffice to say i am bitter that i let that happen and lost my grip on that group.

for a long time i had a lot of painful, hard memories of fun times in vrchat ruined by outside factors. i completely divorced myself from the platform, convinced myself that my time in vr was over and that i had became confidence enough in my own identity that i can "move past" vr. there's some truth in the idea that i didn't "need" vr anymore to validate my identity. i was out and openly trans. i was may now. everyone knew it, and i wasn't scared of shit like my voice or my appearance getting in the way. so why do i care so much still?

well, a lot of things. vr is still compelling to me as an escapist fantasy. i'm happy being me, i can stand that my body isn't perfect in all the ways i want it to be, nobody's is... but i can be exactly what i want in vr. i can be short. i can be cute. i can be frilly. all of this is entirely defined by my own ability to manipulate blender and unity... these things still appeal to me because they surpass many limits on what i can be in real life. and just more than anything else, it's fun to hang out in vrchat. it's a visceral feeling of being in a space with other people in a way you just do not get with any other form of online socialization. people are physically present, emoting with their body and eager to be close to you. you can't get that without having a big dumb vr headset strapped to your head.

it is a little odd seeing valve continuing to push the bar with vr. i was fortunate enough to land a day 1 order e-mail for my steam frame, and i have been having a lot of fun seeing how vr has come since the index in 2019 and the rift cv1 in 2017... it's not perfect in all the ways i had hoped, and obviously the price is going to be a hugely limiting factor in who is able to get their hands on it. in that way, i'm sad it's not going to be the reigniting factor for vr, especially after so many years of hype (those who knew anyting about vr were trawling through patent applications and copyrights since 2021, lol) and knowing that we were in the running to have a proper quest competitor finally.

despite everything, i will probably continue putting hours in vrchat and beat saber. admittedly, there's not much else interesting me that has me captivated with the idea of playing it... i have been enjoying some other games (in no particular order, pools, tetris effect and thumper, all 3 of which are actually hybrid games that can be played without vr and i highly recommend) but ultimately i know that i blew something to the tune of $1,800 CAD for a very, very overpriced vrchat machine. here's hoping i don't totally regret it, lol.